A young boy

In grade school I loved to play basketball. I loved the competition and I loved being involved with all of my friends. It is amazing just how things happen and come together. Like, for instance, how my parents took the idea of signing me up for youth basketball and actually followed through with it. Then from there I have played up until this year. My senior year. And I wasn't having any fun. I hated coming to practices and I was angry and not encouraging to the younger girls at any of the games and it was a sad thing to me when I finally realized what was going on. i decided to talk to my coach about it, he is a christian and I knew that with God by my side I would find the words to speak volumes to my coach. I came to him broken, and when the conversation started he seemed frustrated, angry even but I didn't lose a step, I knew what I had come there to say and what he needed to hear from me. A few minutes later when I shared my heart with him you could just see God break him. He became softer in his body language and speech. It was amazing to see God work in him that way as a result of me being led by God to speak with him. I told him that I was unsure if I should be playing basketball and that I just was not motivated to play for him, I told him how I felt about his criticism and he shared with me pieces of his heart and it became a really sweet discussion. He gave me the weekend off to find what it was that I needed to find. I was aprehensive about doing that because there was a tournament this weekend and it was a three day tournament and I felt like I was betraying the girls and him. He said that it was fine and talked to me about how God will not just give me the answer, I will have to look inside and seek him and only then will it become obvious to me, and he said that God is way more important than basketball. And he said take the weekend off and if you want to play you are free to come back Monday. Then he gave me a hug and we departed as friends.
I have since decided that I want to play basketball this year, I want to have fun doing it and I want to lead my team into a year that they won't soon forget hopefully. I want to create memories. But I did take the weekend off to find the answer. Wednesday night I talked to him and did not attend practice. Thursday nigth I did not travel with them to North Marion for the first night of the tournament, nor did I Friday.
Thursday night I babysat my niece while my brother was taken to the hospital for falling and breaking his arm and possibly tearing a ligament in his knee. It had happened Wednesday night but he is autistic and we didn't know how hurt he was, he didn't cry at all and we could not tell how badly he was hurt. He is not super great at communicating those kind of things. We tucked him in bed and the next morning he woke up really early and if you know my brother he does not wake up early at all. He wasn't eating well and was as white as a ghost. My mom called me home and they took him in to emergency. Had I been at the game that was scheduled I would not have been readily available to my family.
Friday night I went to a Christmas white elephant exchange party thing and had a blast. I am really quickly distracted at those kinds of things when there are kids willing to play with me there. All of my youth pastor's kids were there and I was quite content running around with them, and I was also introduced to an eleven year old boy and his twin sister. This little boy had suffered from a lack of oxygen at birth because the doctor had failed to take his mother into emergency c section when they got his sister out but he would not come out. I was introduced to this young man and he was a little shy and reserved at first and was always looking to make sure his aunt was near by. I was running up and down the steps and on one of my trips upstairs I asked him if he would like to come downstairs and play. He said, "Sure," and went to tell his aunt that he was going downstairs. He trotted on down the stairs and fell right into place with the rest of us and began playing video games with one of the boys. I was tickling someones back and this little boy asked me if when I was done with this other boy if I could rub his back. I said. "SURE!" I was already drawn to this boy and hooked. He giggled as I messaged his back, it tickled him, his back is very sensative. He said that it tickled and soon he wanted me to stop. So I did. I sat by him a while longer and talked to him as he made an interception on the football game and then a touchdown, but I also sat with him as he got the ball intercepted and numerous touchdowns were scored on him, and one thing that I noticed was he never lost heart and he never got upset or angry and he kept playing. I admired this in him. His aunt came downstairs to check on him and I got up to do something and when I came back she had something to tell me. She told me that her nephew was too shy to tell me himself but that he wanted her to tell me that he thought I was pretty. And that he thought he had a crush on me. I told him out loud that I thought he was very handsome. I also thought to myself that he was only seven years younger or so and that I could wait for him. :) . This boy blessed my life beyond words and he taught me so much. I mean how many people are that honest without being fake or without being totally terrified about the result of their feelings? I have only met one like that, this boy.
God truly is amazing. I took two days off of basketball and had two days that changed my life immediately, if the two games I missed were strictly for those life changing events then it was all worth it. I missed two games and then today I re joined the team and played with them in two games today and got to spend some quality time with my mom and scored the top score in both the games and had a true desire to play, and I really enjoyed it and I was not angry and did not bring the team down. These last few days have been incredible and God is showing me life.